Aesthetic Signal Processing in Music Production: is the Intended Emotional Response Achieved?

Abstract: As a mixing engineer, it is crucial to know how your tools work and how they affect the sound and the music; this is obvious to many engineers. What is not as obvious is the emotional impact these tools might have. Very little research and literature exists on the topic of emotions and music production, even though the most commonly cited reason for listening to music is due to its emotional effect. This exploratory study examines if mixing engineers use signal processing with the intention of emotional induction, and if the techniques they use really work as the engineers intend. To research this, two studies were conducted: interviews with ten mixing engineers, and a listening test with ten musically untrained listeners. The goal of the interviews was to find out if this is a common practice or not, and also to find out what these techniques are. The most common technique, reverb, was used in the listening test to see if it could induce emotions in listeners. It was shown that many engineers use mixing techniques with the intention of emotional induction. It was harder to extract any clear data on how to do this. The listening tests showed that the reverbs did not have any greater affect on the listeners’ emotions, although a few emotional changes could be distinguished. More research is needed to confirm these findings, and to explore the topic area further.